Eldoret

Eldoret: An African Poetics of Technology is both a history and an anthropology of technology. As author Swiderski explains in the introduction, " 'Poetics,' derived from the Greek verb poein meaning 'to make do,' has as much to do with technology (material making) as with poetry (verbal making), and refers to the ongoing act of assembly that can look like the passage of time or the eternity of culture and is actually both. It is an African poetics because the act of assembly is motivated by African conditions, and executed through the genius and strength of the African people." The resulting ethnography, illustrated with thirty-two of the author's delightful line drawings, is unconventional in design and brilliantly executed. It will be of considerable interest and value not only to cultural anthropologists but to many in geography, economics, business, technology studies and allied fields. . Drawing on his personal experience in living in Eldoret, Swiderski creates an impressionistic sketch of the hybridization of imported and indigenous technologies in this community, and of the varied patterns that are created as the residents of the town and its hinterland employ these technologies in everyday life. The poetic focus on technology is a creative and effective device for exploring many wider issues - entrepreneurship, resource management, wealth, poverty, structural unemployment, bender relations, ethnic and class conflict, and other problems of life and development in Third World communities.